AllMovie

A highly symbolic Finnish drama, this mute story is about a young Finn engineer who is caught near a nuclear explosion in the Arctic circle and tries to escape the subsequent radiation by ducking into a mine shaft. The "white dwarf" of the title is scientific jargon for a lethal dose of radiation. Even though the engineer survives, he soon discovers he is terminally ill with leukemia. He becomes especially morose and taciturn as he tries to come to grips with his impending death.